Tain ROC post has to be the most barely underground ROC post I have seen. It's like the thing was dumped in a field and they just piled earth over it (well, to be honest that's probably exactly what they did). I arrived at the site around mid afternoon and sat in the car eating a sandwich waiting for the rain to stop. Annoyingly the weather had been fine until the moment I arrived. The rain cloud soon passed and the sun came out again, so I got out the car and attached a plethora of cameras and torches to myself and clambered over the fence. 
I started off by taking some stills of the site. All was good, the sun was out and there was little wind. This all changed when I got my video camera out though... My original plan for the trip was to do a video documentary, which would have made this blog style report obsolete, but with the wind really picking up and the temperature dropping, I decided I couldn't be bothered any more. I also got far too engrossed in the contents of the bunker. My hands eventually became painful due to the cold so I went and sat in the car for a while to warm up. I remembered I had a pair of heavy duty gloves in the boot and decided it would be a good idea to wear them.
Having warmed up I got out the car again and decided it was time to go down into the bunker. 'Lost' from 28dayslater.co.uk had visited the site just over a month previously and reported it had been trashed by kids, but everything was still there - including a Teletalk. "My god there's a teletalk on the floor - that needs saving - get it out of there" exclaimed another member. 'Lost' said he would rescue it, so I was interested to find out if it was still there or not. I lifted the hatch with little effort due to the counter weight (and the fact the locks had been smashed off) and peered down the hole. 
At the bottom I could see papers and other rubbish. I squeezed in the hole and climed down the ladder (no, I'm not fat, but I was wearing two cameras and a massive torch!) I reached the bottom and turned on my 'light blaster'. There it was, just like in the photos I'd seen so many of on 28dayslater.co.uk - the inside of an ROC bunker (ok so the local neds had decided to try out their interior re-design skills in there, but still, everything was mostly there). Why do these mindless pricks do this? I tutted and sighed at the mess they had made and went back up the ladder for my tripod.
I then spent quite a while taking photos. I didn't want to use the flash so aimed the beast of a torch at the ceiling and took long exposures using the tripod instead. While I was taking photos, I read some of the documents lying around and found them fascinating. There were training documents, maps, diagrams, proceedures and many copies of the ROC Journal from over the years. There was no Teletalk, however. I can only hope that 'Lost' has rescued it. Edit: he has indeed!
Rather than me try to explain everything and post all the individual thumbnails, you should look at the Gallery which compliments this report (http://pics.rguk.eu/tain_roc). I suggest you manually browse through them one after the other.
I was so engrossed in all this fascinating stuff that I barely heard the rustling above ground.
"Hello there?" Enquired a voice. "Hello" I replied. "Can I help you?" Said the voice. "I'm not sure, can you?" I said, walking out the door and squinting up at the hatch. A man dressed in an orange BP boiler suit was looking over the edge. "May I ask what you're doing down there?" He said. "I'm just having a look around" I replied. "Well I actually own this and came to see what you were up to". Ah, the owner - fantastic, I thought. I wonder if he can tell me anything interesting and I wonder what his plans are for the place. "Oh really?" I said, "Ah great - perhaps you can tell me a bit about the place?". The man then explained that he didn't really know anything about it and that he's the nearby farmer and had been offered to buy it [the land] back off the ROC some time ago. I told him I wasn't there to cause any harm and was genuinely interested in the place, which I most definately was. I told him about how I was a member of an online community of people interested in checking out old abandoned buildings etc and documenting them. We both agreed what a shame it was that these damn kids had got in and wrecked the place, especially as so much stuff was there. The farmer said that there had been locks on the hatch but the kids smashed them off, as well as trashing the vent shafts etc. He also admitted that he'd never actually been down the bunker. I said he should come down and look but he said he wasn't keen on the small space.
I asked what his plans were for the bunker and he said he had none. He said he was considering welding the hatch shut to stop the kids going down. I was horrified at this idea and suggested he didn't do this! He did have a point though - if one of them gets locked in or hurts themselves, he'll be blamed. Satisfied I wasn't there to cause any harm, he left me to carry on, suggesting I think of a way to secure the hatch without welding it and that if I ever visit again, just to give him a shout to let him know. "You can tidy it up if you like", he said.
I continued to take more photos, this time using the flash as I had run down my big torch from using it for so long. Time flew. It's amazing how long you can spend in a hole in the ground when there's lots of interesting stuff around! "Shit! It's 4pm and I have work at 5 and I'm in Tain!" I realised. I snapped a few last pictures, strung my belongings around my neck and clambered up the ladder, rather clumsily, with my tripod in my other hand. I threw the tripod onto the grass and got out. I had some fun trying to get the hatch to shut, it seemed to get snagged on something. It eventually did, pinching my hand a bit in the process - thank god I'd put those heavy gloves on! I returned to the car and piled everything in and set off home. I got to work half an hour late but oh well, it was worth it.
You can see all the photos at http://pics.rguk.eu/tain_roc.
Post any comments and particularly suggestions for securing the hatch on the 28dayslater.co.uk forum